Paul ramps up campaign spending

Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign has ramped up faster than his 2008 bid, hiring staff in key states and making paid media buys earlier than last time.

That’s costing a lot of money.

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Paul’s heavy campaign burn-rate emerged in his third-quarter campaign finance report filed Saturday, which showed him raising about $8.2 million for the period but also spending $7.5 million. He finished the quarter with $3.6 million in the bank. The largest costs came in the form of more than $2 million spent on TV and direct-mail advertising, for airtime and mail pieces that are running well past the quarter’s closing date last month.

The campaign also is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on field and strategy consulting in early-voting states, targeted Internet advertising, campaign merchandise and a charter plane that the Texas congressman uses for most of his campaign travel.

The burn-rate stands in stark contrast to the same period during his 2008 campaign, when he raised $5.2 million and spent only $2.1 million. And Paul’s campaign says that’s exactly the point. Last time, Paul strategists believe, the campaign waited too long to staff up and capitalize on the surge of interest and online donations that fueled his run. The campaign is making no bones about its heavy spending.

“We’re taking on the establishment, the people that backed the bailouts and nation-building overseas,” top Paul strategist Jesse Benton told POLITICO. “We’re in this to win, and we’re spending the money that it takes to make sure Ron can compete.”

The lower cash-on-hand number — Rick Perry and Mitt Romney have $15 million and $14.6 million in the bank, respectively — does put Paul at an organization disadvantage in the early states, where he’ll have to rely more heavily on an active volunteer base.

The money is still coming in the same way it always has: massive numbers of small donations from Paul’s followers, who loyally give when the campaign holds an online so-called money bomb that it pioneered last cycle. He easily surpassed half-a-million dollars with each money bomb and has broken the $1 million mark on more than one occasion.

That money is buying about $1.2 million on national and early-state TV ad buys; about $1 million in direct-mail advertising; almost $300,000 on the charter plane; and hundreds of thousands of dollars for more than two dozen field and strategy consultants in more than a dozen states, among other spends.